Every time the market tumbles, people ask the SAME question

Every time the market tumbles, people ask the SAME question

On a fairly regular basis I get questions from folks – about financial planning, of course – either via the “Ask Your Question” portal on our website or through face-to-face interactions. Speaking of which, every once in a while such an interaction involves a total stranger walking up to me because they recognize me from one of the area magazines for which I write columns. I must mention that I find those moments to be refreshingly rewarding, not that I’m seeking them out.

This past week I stopped by a local coffee shop to grab my must-have chai latte. Out of nowhere, a woman walked up to me and asked if I was who she thought I was – the investment advisor guy in the magazine? After exchanging a few pleasantries, she got to the financial question of the day: What in the world is going on with the stock market? Look at what the DOW (Dow Jones Industrial Average) is doing – is this a sign of the next crash? Should I get out now?

That’s a fairly familiar line of questioning anytime things aren’t headed up, up, up with the stock market. And I understand folks’ desire to know exactly what the deal is, especially given that the past week or so has been pretty chaotic with the DOW sliding by 732 points. It was at 17,801 on December 9. A week later, on December 16, it was down to 17,069. Of course, as of last Friday, the DOW was back to 17,804 - My coffeehouse encounter happened prior to that.

Here was my response to her and, for that matter, to anyone with a similar question:

I don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow. Never have and never will. And the same goes for every single financial advisor or expert you see in the media. Yes, no one knows exactly what’s going to happen.

And here’s the simple proof to back up my point: to date in the history of this planet, no one has been able to consistently and successfully predict the market’s exact path, beyond what everyone already knows – or more appropriately, must know by now – that sometimes the market goes up and sometimes it goes down. Period! And period again!

You may be wondering, but what about all these smart looking, eloquent folks you see on TV or hear about on the radio? They can’t predict the future either. I think what a lot of us tend to do is confuse someone telling you what has already happened in hindsight as forward–looking, but they are two completely different things. What most of these so-called media experts are doing doesn’t require any special powers, so to speak. There’s a reason we refer to that as Monday Morning quarterbacking.

So here’s the point I’m trying to get across. Don’t waste your emotions on the direction of the stock market, my dear friend, because the markets are going to do whatever they are meant to do. That doesn’t, however, mean to even suggest that you should simply buy a couple stocks or mutual funds and just forget about the rest.

There is such thing as a scientifically proven means to properly diversifying your investments so that you can capture market returns without needing to speculate and trying to do the impossible task of predicting (or worse, letting someone else fool you by telling you that they can predict) market movements.

I’d recommend that you work with someone who can help you to build an efficiently diversified portfolio with a volatility that you can live with. And then go about your daily life.

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Want an independent assessment to confirm that you are on the right track when it comes to saving for your retirement, including the money you will leave to your heirs? Come in so we can help you to  objectively evaluate your current approach. Visit LaserFG.com or call 877.656.9111 right now to book your complimentary session. 

If Your Financial Advisor Is Doing This, Tell Him/Her, “You’re Fired!”

If Your Financial Advisor Is Doing This, Tell Him/Her, “You’re Fired!”

Imagine a doctor who, when you consulted with him or her, allowed you, the patient, to tell him/her the medications you wanted, down to the exact dosage – and then pulled out a pad and wrote precisely that prescription. Should you – or would you – visit with such a physician? Of course, not! You’d be wise to stay as far away as you possibly could.

How about this other doctor? He or she speaks with you at length, makes a diagnosis, and decides that you need some antibiotics. However, he/she then gives you a list of say 15 to 20 different types of available medications, asks you, the patient, to choose, and then writes the prescription based on your choice. Would you deal with such a doctor?

Only a person who doesn’t value his or her life would have anything to do with either of these doctors. I’d even bet that if there were such doctors in real life, it wouldn’t be long before they’d lose their licenses to practice. I imagine they might even wind up behind bars.

Now let’s look into the way so many financial advisors, consultants, specialists, or whatever fancy-schmancy title you can come up with, operate. They talk with you; you tell them which product you want, like an IRA or a mutual fund. And what happens next? You get a list of available funds from which to choose. So you do your thing and there you go, your account is all set up. Or maybe you answer some quick questions on a computer program and a nice pie chart pops up with your available options – from which, you the client, make the actual selections for your account.

That may sound fairly familiar and even normal, but here’s the unfortunate thing: It’s a horrible way to plan your future! How different is that from the bad doctor scenarios I mentioned earlier? Just think about it. If your so-called financial advisor is asking you to make all the nitty gritty selections regarding your investment portfolio, you’re basically writing your own prescription. And the most incredible part is that, the advisor, the one with the license and “expertise” to guide you, is ultimately letting you do their work – and he/she still gets paid from your money. Is that how things are supposed to work? Of course not! The sad thing is that this is exactly the way that easily 9 out of 10 advisor-client roles are playing out at this very moment. Is it any surprise, then, that more and more folks have practically nothing tangible to show after all their years of hard work and investing?

Just so we are clear, I’m not suggesting by any measure that you should simply hand over your money and have no input. Of course you should set boundaries regarding what you can live with and expect out of your investments. But if the person with the training and license to actually write the prescription is leaving all the decision-making up to you, simply based on your intuition, why are you paying them? Maybe these so-called advisors prefer this setup because it works in their favor when it comes to being held fully accountable: “Hey, if I let you make your own selections, you can’t blame me later if you’re not satisfied.”

My dear investor, are you working with a REAL advisor? Or are you just paying someone to watch you do eeny-meeny-miny-moe with your future?

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Want an independent assessment to confirm that you are on the right track when it comes to saving for your retirement, including the money you will leave to your heirs? Come in so we can help you to  objectively evaluate your current approach. Visit LaserFG.com or call 877.656.9111 right now to book your complimentary session.